


The Things We Are and Hope To Be

by Eternaladdict



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Angst, Hopeful Ending, M/M, Magic Revealed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-01
Updated: 2013-03-01
Packaged: 2017-12-04 00:37:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,009
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/704457
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eternaladdict/pseuds/Eternaladdict
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"You are good and strong and...still breathing. I think sometimes that was the point in it all, the point in me.  All the lies and the hiding and the fear. All the power. It was meant to keep you alive, too keep you safe."</p><p>AU. Arthur finds out.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Things We Are and Hope To Be

* * *

 

On Sunday he stands in the depths of his Castle, dungeon straw sticking to the hems of his breaches and asks again for answers.

The guards linger on the other side of the metal bars as if they can’t trust their King with his servant. There are three, all young and unsure, the proud red of Camelot’s cloaks out of place on their childish frames. Arthur wants to rage at them for their impudence, wants to make them hurt. But they are still his people, even now. His wrath belongs to the boy at his feet.

"Wait for me in the courtyard" he commands, letting the steel show in his eyes. He's careful not to look away, standing tall and every inch the King of Camelot until they’ve reluctantly shuffled out and he can hear the heavy scrape of their boots on the floor above.

There’s no sunlight down here to catch the blue of Merlin’s eyes. Arthur can’t read his face properly in the darkness and it’s so unsettling to look for someone so recognizable and find a stranger.

But it was all a lie Arthur reminds himself. Merlin was never his friend, never the clumsy, stubborn, amiable servant that had come to mean more to Arthur than anyone else. It was all a trick. The boy Arthur loved didn’t exist, an invention created to lower his guard, to make him weak. There is only this man, on his knees in the straw and the filth.

"You're a sorcerer" Arthur says when he can trust his voice.

"Yes."

Merlin doesn't elaborate, doesn't try to defend himself or explain. His gaze stays stubbornly on the thick dungeon slabs and he doesn’t try to stand.

The resigned slump of his shoulders reminds Arthur of Gwenivere in the great hall, waiting to hear her sentence and already knowing the answer. He had thought he’d lost everything at that moment, that there could be no worse betrayal, no greater treachery than that. He’d been wrong. His anger rises again, thick and choking.

"You lied to me" he states, the words spat out between clenched teeth.

Merlin pauses for a moment and then gives the smallest of nods.

"Yes."

"Is that it then?" Arthur asks, hating the way his voice breaks, the weakness that seeps through the cracks. "All of this...all this time...it was just some trick, a way to get close to me, to my father?" He thinks he’ll never get used to betrayal.

"No Arthur!" Scrambling to his feet Merlin meets his eyes for the first time, dark pools shining in the torchlight and he sounds so certain, so honest. "I promise you it’s nothing like that. The magic was for you. Everything I’ve done was for you."

Arthur has an overwhelming desire to kill something.

"If that's the case then why didn't you TRUST ME and tell me the truth? We were friends..." He pauses, trying hard to keep his voice calm. "I thought we were friends. You've done nothing but lie me and you expect me to believe even one word you say now."

"I wanted to tell you, I swear it!" Merlin sounds on the verge of tears. Arthur tells himself he doesn't care. "For so long it's been the thing I've wanted more than anything else. But it was so huge and I was so afraid and after your father there just wasn't....How could I have told you after that?" Merlin implores, shifting on the balls of his feet, the way he always does when he's anxious. The gesture is as familiar as it is heartbreaking. He looks young and miserable. "You would have made me leave."

Something clinks into place in Arthur’s mind

"The old man- that was you." It isn't a question but Merlin nods anyway.

"An aging spell. "

"I knew there was something. The way he talked to me... I should have seen it sooner. Nobody mocks me the way you do."

"I thought if I could save your father, maybe then you’d see that magic wasn’t evil. I wanted to prove it."

"Magic corrupts" Arthur parrots almost automatically, recognizing his father’s tone in the words.

"Power corrupts" Merlin throws back, a hundred shades of anger in his voice suddenly and it doesn’t seem fair that Merlin gets to be the one that’s angry.

Arthur can’t help the bitter chuckle that seeps out of him, like liquid through the cracks of something broken. "I’m such a fool."

"You are a KING Arthur!" Merlin states, not sounding as much angry anymore as fierce and sure. "The one true king. Brave and merciful and kind. So kind. So much kinder than you're father and so much better."

There are tears in his eyes and on his face, glittering in the dimness. Arthur remembers his eyes lit up with golden fire and wants to tell Merlin he has no right to talk like this but his throat is tight and burning and it's so hard not to believe this boy. This boy who he used to trust above everyone else.

"You are the one true king" Merlin says again, his voice thick. "You are MY king and for that I would have done anything. To keep you alive, to keep you safe I would have given anything!"

"I was four the first time I used magic. Will and I were playing at throwing stones and I threw one too big. It broke our milk churn and I felt so guilty, so awful and then suddenly it wasn't broken any more. It had fixed its self and I hadn't meant it to happen but it had. When I told my mother she was so frightened. I'm still not sure whether she was scared for me or of me." Merlin's talking fast now, the words flooding out in a sudden rush and it's like something has broken open in him, something that's been hidden a very long time. "I wanted to cut it out for so long. To rip out whatever was in me that meant I was always having to hide, to keep my distance. But then I came to Camelot and met you, and sudddenly my magic was something more than just hiding and lies. It meant I could protect you. And you are worth protecting Arthur. You always were. Even when you were an arrogant, stuck up prince you were still merciful and fair. And you loved your people in a way your father never did, never could."

The boy lies well Arthur tells himself, trying to make himself as hard and untouchable as the stone walls around them and not succeeding. "You speak of my mercy like it will save you."

Merlin doesn't stop, not seeming to register the threat in Arthur's tone. "I wish I could explain how much I love you" he says instead, his voice a soft, fragile thing. "You are good and strong and...still breathing. I think sometimes that was the point in it all, the point in me. All the lies and the hiding and the fear. All the power. It was meant to keep you alive, too keep you safe."

Tears have made tracts on his Manservant's face, cutting through the layers of dungeon dirt. Arthur has a sudden irrational desire to trace them with his fingers. Instead he curls his hands into fists and squeezes until his nails cut half moons into his palms.

"You are alive and you are King" Merlin continues with an upward curve to his lips, the smallest and sweetest of his smiles. His eyes are patient in the darkness, forgiving and it’s like pouring fuel on an open flame. Arthur’s fury flares inside him. He wants to ask what the hell Merlin thinks he has to forgive Arthur for all things considered.

"When they burn me I will remember that and it will be alright" Merlin says after a moment, wiping his tears on a ragged sleeve and smiling into the distance, calm again and so eerily sure.

It’s that that makes Arthur angrier than all the rest. Merlin's resignation, his expectation that Arthur would let him burn.

The backhand takes them both by surprise. Merlin looks up from the floor, streak of red across his lip and cheek as he dabs at the wound. He doesn’t retaliate, just sits there bleeding onto his sleeve. Arthur feels his anger slipping away and lets it go.

"Sorry" he says, and then again because he is. "I’m sorry."

His face feels hot and wet and he realises he’s crying which is horrible and embarrassing and shameful but he can’t seem to make himself stop, can’t seem to control the violent shaking in his hands. The weight of the last few days presses down on him, pulling him under and it’s too much. He falls to his knees, light headed and nauseous, coming apart right there on the dungeon floor, body shuddering with sobs.

"Arthur" There’s the press of a cool hand in his hair, tentative at first and then firmer when he doesn’t pull away. Arthur can’t stop himself, he leans into the touch.

He can feel Merlin shaking too, the little hitches in his breathing as he whispers "It’s ok, it's ok" again and again like Arthur’s the one on trial for his life, like Arthur's the one that's frightened. But then maybe he is and despite everything, despite all the lies and tricks and betrayal this is Merlin. Arthur can’t imagine being without him.

After a minute breathing comes easier. He turns his head into Merlin’s neck, smells the skin there warm and familiar.

"My father...you must have hated him" he says when his chest feels loose enough to speak. "Everything he did to people with magic..."

"Sometimes. I hated the way you looked up to him the most, the way you tried to be like him when you were something so much better." Merlin's fingers are still twisted in his hair, anchoring Arthur to the world. "But you loved him. In the end that was enough for me."

Arthur doesn't know what to say to that. He thinks of magic and the power he was taught to fear at his father's knee. He thinks of Morgana and of his mother and all the people that have been made to pay the cost of that power. And then he thinks of Merlin and his aptitude for clumsiness and the tips of his ears that go red when he’s mad.

There was a boy that came to him once, when he was still the arrogant prince; cocky and selfish and so incredibly alone. Before Gwen, before Gwain or Elyan or any of his hand chosen knights there was a boy in peasant clothes who smiled and held out his hand. Who complained and joked and never learned to bow. Who nagged and cajoled and shaped a lonely, self-centered child into something that halfway resembled a decent person, a decent king. Arthur doesn't know what name he should to give to the person who is, in the end, responsible for almost all that is good in him. But he's pretty sure whatever he calls him..servant, sorcerer, friend...he is _Merlin_ , now and always and there's no way in hell Arthur's going to let him die.

He lifts his head slowly, so as not to dislodge Merlin's hand from his hair. Their faces are very close and Arthur imagines briefly that they must be a mirror of each other, both tear-stained and desperate. Both determined.

In the space between breaths Arthur leans in and brushes his lips against Merlin's. He isn't frightened anymore. There is no more room for uncertainty and he understands, even as Merlin's body moves eagerly against his own, that they are both done with hiding, from themselves or each other.

Merlin's mouth is sweet under his and Arthur lets his eyes drop closed, knowing with complete clarity that when he opens them it will be to a brave new world. And that they'll face it together.

 


End file.
